


I do not think of her often

by august_the_real



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:33:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/august_the_real/pseuds/august_the_real
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna wrecks your life like an anorexic love. . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	I do not think of her often

I do not think of her often  
by august (mrsrosiebojangles@gmail.com

I stumbled across their names quite by accident. It had been two years  
since Voyager had crossed my path. In those two years the Devor Empire  
has changed so much -- our campaign against the telepaths has been  
won. Most of the threat has been eradicated; the negligible number  
that remain are inconsequential. It has been the most successful  
operation in my world's history.

I rose in my ranks, despite the Voyager fiasco. Or perhaps, because of  
the Voyager fiasco. I became more vigilant in my investigations. I no  
longer turned away the more... enthusiastic approaches of Prax. I  
became a better inspector because I was beaten at my own game.

And, after two years, the game is over. Most of the telepaths are  
dead, or in containment camps. Our officers deal mostly with  
intergalatic telepaths and in the interests of harmony, Devor is no  
longer concerned with the capture of gaharays.

These days I am mostly concerned with the administration of the  
containment camps. Thousands of names pass across my desk every day.  
Today it happened to be theirs.

 

Janeway, Kathryn (gaharay)  
Tuvok (telepath, gaharay)  
Chakotay (gaharay)  
Kim, Harry (gaharay)  
Yen, Phi (gaharay)  
Wildman, Naomi (gaharay)

 

The list went on and on. I suspect if her name had not been there, I  
would not have recognised them. They would have been familiar, but  
like notes from a song that you just can't place.

I quickly scanned the file. It was dated almost eighteen months ago -  
a lot could have changed since then.

They had been contained. All of them.

There was a certain irony to their capture. They were two months out  
of Devor space and just happened to collide with one of our bounty  
hunter ships. A one in million chance, I'm told. They were quickly  
overpowered.

I tried to imagine Kathryn's face at the precise moment she realised  
she was beaten.

\---

I did not think of her often.

Sometimes, however, I wondered if she thought of me.

I used to think my job was like a game. Play the right role, be the  
right person. I had a 78 percent success rate. Not excellent, but good  
enough.

I play back my time on Voyager, trying to pinpoint the moment where  
she first became suspicious.

I decide that there was no first moment. She never trusted me.

\---

She came to my quarters late one night. I had just invited her in,  
only to have her decline. Yet three hours later she was standing  
outside my door, and I was somehow not surprised. I stood back a  
little, and she walked past me.

Thinking about it now, I realise that she was probably baiting me.  
That the confusion, the confessions she bled were all perfectly  
phrased and executed. That there was nothing that happened that night  
\-- or on the three nights we spent together, that she didn't plan.

She just did it so well.

"I don't know why I came, Kashyk." She said, looking around.

"Don't you?"

"You have murdered." She said aloud, almost as if to remind herself of  
the fact.

"So have you." I replied.

"It's not the same."

"If you like." I shrugged, turning away. I could see her reflection in  
the viewport, and for a moment she looked as if she was about to turn  
and leave. The deliberation played out on her face.

She stayed.

"It is wrong that at the moment, I don't care what you have done." She  
was not speaking to me, I know that.

"We wash our own hands." She looked puzzled, and I smiled. "It's a  
Devor phrase."

She smiled wryly, looking away. "Nice."

I moved closer. She moved back a little, almost imperceptibly and for  
a moment I thought that perhaps she *was* going to walk straight out.  
And then she kissed me.

"No talking." She said, pulling at my shirt. "No talking."

She did not stay. I could almost hear her measuring out the  
appropriate amount, the requirement of post-coital togetherness. It  
was another strange experience: very rarely in my life have I been the  
one who doesn't leave.

"You're not staying?"

"No. I don't think so." She pulled her tank top over her head.

"You don't have to go." I drew a pattern on the back of her neck with  
my fingers. It was beautiful. Slender and twitching when she moved.

"Yes, I do." She stood and smoothed down her uniform. "You  
understand."

"Better than anyone." I murmured, watching her leave.

\---

I find, now, that I cannot stop thinking of her

I try to imagine how she would have been in the containment camps.  
Desperate and savage. It invades my thoughts. I have dinner with my  
lover and he knows that something is wrong. He doesn't ask, but when  
he takes me to bed, he is kind and gentle.

As I stretch over his body, holding his arms, covering him with my  
mausoleum grip, I think of her. It makes me mad. I am attracted to  
this man and it dishonors both of us for me to be thinking of her.

Yet in my mind, she is before me, on her knees. Warm fingers on my  
thigh, spidering upwards. Warm mouth engulfing me. I place my hands on  
her head and she hums a little. Or she is lying before me, on her bed.  
On her stomach, never looking at me, her fingers clutch at the sheets  
\- never at me.

The image stills me. I pull away from him. He looks at me carefully  
and asks what is wrong. He is not accustomed to my hesitation. Neither  
am I. I don't know how to explain to him... we decided long ago not to  
talk of my work.

I would be lying if I said she was just that.

It reminds me of the second night we spent in her quarters. The  
computer was playing Mahler as we fucked on the floor in front of her  
couch. Later, we sat with our backs to it and talked in quiet voices.  
Idle chit chat, pseudo-conversation for pseudo-lovers.

"Chakotay? He's nothing."

I imagined her one day saying the same about me. "Kashyk? He was  
nothing."

It still unsettles me. I have never been accustomed to being played  
the fool.

I wonder the conversations we could have had, if we had both known the  
parts we were playing. I wonder how different it could have been, had  
we both known.

I do not think of her often  
by august (mrsrosiebojangles@gmail.com

I sometimes think about trying to find her. In my more unrealistic  
moments, I imagine rescuing her from the camps, showing her Devor. I  
imagine that she would want to see it.

But then, I remember that she is gaharay. That I could never bring her  
into my world, into my life. That I wouldn't know where to begin  
looking for her, such is the state of the containment camps at the  
moment.

And that, after eighteen months, she's probably dead

 

"My offer to stay was genuine." She had told me on that last day, and  
I don't think she was lying.

When my shuttle left her ship, I had kissed her palm, the most  
intimate gesture that a Devoran can give another. I don't know why I  
did it - maybe because it was there, maybe because I suspected a  
gaharay wouldn't understand. I'm not sure I wanted her to, either.


End file.
